A survey has found that the public are overwhelmingly in favour of keeping separate toilets for men and women and single-sex changing rooms. The campaign group Sex Matters asked 7,000 people in their report, with near-unanimous responses regarding the questions.
The findings come on the back of major high-street stores, leisure centres and even schools replacing separate facilities with gender-neutral ones to appear more inclusive to transgender individuals. A total of 98 per cent of respondents wanted to get undressed, shower or use the toilet away from the opposite sex, reports the Mail.
Furthermore, 97 per cent said single-sex spaces were important to them, while 95 per cent would insist on a woman carer for an elderly female relative. In addition, 89 per cent agreed that females should be allowed to meet up by themselves in groups such as Guides and 61 per cent responded by saying that single-sex sports teams were important for fairness and safety.
Maya Forstater, Sex Matters’ executive director, said: "What the new Sex Matters research provides, for the first time, is evidence of the strength of feeling – and the voices of thousands of ordinary people who are being ignored. The public is not being consulted about toilets and changing rooms becoming 'gender-neutral', rape crisis centres dropping female-only support groups and grassroots sporting organisations allowing males who identify as female to compete against girls and women.
"The report fills a gap in the evidence that has led many schools, employers, hospitals and other service providers and their funders to mistakenly decide that single-sex facilities are not needed, are old-fashioned or are too difficult to provide."
Last year Maya Forstater won an appeal against an employment tribunal after she lost her job after saying that people cannot change their biological sex. She lost her original case at a tribunal in 2019, but a High Court judge ruled her "gender-critical" beliefs fell under the Equalities Act.
Some of the 7,000 people surveyed by Sex Matters’ said they had stopped going to theatre toilets or using shop changing rooms after encountering biological males. Similarly, others said they no longer attended their Women’s Institute groups because they were "dominated" by trans women.
The report, to be launched in Parliament, comes as women’s rights become a major battleground in the Tory leadership contest. Penny Mordaunt insists she is not "woke" after allegedly attempting to replace the word ‘mother’ with ‘pregnant person’ in a maternity law. Elsewhere, Kemi Badenoch said she had to fight civil servants to push through a ban on gender-neutral toilets in public buildings.
Helen Joyce, director of advocacy for Sex Matters, said: "Politicians and policymakers have been swept up in a fashionable ideology that is completely divorced from mainstream opinion. This research should give them the courage to push back against gender extremists and defend the single-sex spaces and services that the vast majority of people value and rely upon."
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